“Dear Rabbi Goldmintz: A trend I’m seeing or hearing in my college-age children and “all their friends”, (according to them) is a “freedom” from some basic religious limitations while they’re in college and yet, a confidence that they will go back to being “religious” when they get older, have spouses, families, etc.  More particularly, while

In the American system of education, a child enters first grade at about the age of 6. He enters high school at about age 14 and, at age 18, he is for all intents and purposes an adult, ready to vote. Interestingly, Chazal delineated these stages as well. Age 6 was the time they recommended

 A community rabbi once mentioned to me that when he speaks to bar mitzvah boys before their big day, he asks them “What do you think is a difficult mitzvah?” Many of the boys answer “fasting,” and indeed many of us can recall the sheer terror at the thought that “this year, I’m not going

Dedicated to the memory of my mother, Chaya Sarah bat Meyer and Royze Cohen, who passed away last week at the age of 96. I pray that she thought her prayers came true. My mother z”l used to say that you can do whatever you can in parenting your child until she or he turns

Religious development can be understood not only in terms of the affective domain, the emotional side of belief that we spoke about last time, but cognitively as well. That is to say, how do young children think about God? What can they truly understand? Given that their ability to think in the abstract is limited,

An infant has no sense of permanency – that’s one reason why they can play “peak-a-boo” forever; their brains are not developed enough to understand that you haven’t really disappeared behind the hands covering your face. A young child cannot understand that taking that candy from the store is an immoral act; hence you have

I am embarrassed to say that I came across the notion of religious development relatively late in my career but I do remember when I had my epiphany. I vividly recall seeing a twelfth-grade girl davening one day at Shacharit with what seemed like great kavanah (intent), something she had been doing all year. But

I’ve been writing the last few weeks about what it means to be a spiritual role model for one’s children. Here are some responses from readers who recall the positive and negative exemplars in their own lives. My parents and grandmothers were my primary influence. Every Friday coming home for lunch the aroma of Shabbat

We have been speaking about what it means to be a spiritual role model for one’s child. How exactly does spiritual modeling work? Social psychologists refer to it as “observational learning.” You watch your role models do stuff and then you end up doing it too. If only it were so easy! Instead, it has

My teacher (and exemplar) Nechama Leibowitz z”l was fond of telling the story of a cab driver who once asked her if she knew what the difference was between a melamed (one who teaches) and a moreh (a teacher). Nechama remarked that she thought they were essentially the same. The cab driver then said to